CORELOG project results as a remedy for congested roads

We are witnessing a year-on-year increase in the transport of goods and passengers by road. When traveling on Polish roads, we see nothing but kilometers of trucks. The increase in transport is confirmed by studies from the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways, according to which the average daily traffic on roads in the Greater Poland region has increased over the last 5 years by 5% on international roads and by as much as 29% on national roads. The situation is similar in other regions of the country. There are several reasons for this situation. One of them is the lack of adequate road infrastructure that would ensure sufficient capacity and traffic flow.

What can we do to make our roads less congested while also improving the state of the natural environment? Consultants from the Institute of Logistics and Warehousing (ILiM) have found the answer to this question. As part of the European project CORELOG (Coordinated Regional Logistics), a group of experts was appointed in the Greater Poland Voivodeship with the task of developing a pilot project related to transport in the region. The aforementioned group consisted of representatives of local authorities, manufacturing and trading companies, road and rail carriers, and container terminal operators. Analyzing the current situation, the project team members pointed out that the problem largely boils down to the fact that companies using the services of carriers do not have sufficient knowledge or time to optimize their distribution network and analyze the possibilities of using transport means in their daily operations. One of the partners of the CORELOG project was a leading manufacturer of city and tourist buses in Europe, Solaris Bus & Coach Sp. z o.o. Employees of Solaris, together with experts from ILiM, decided to analyze the transport solutions used by the bus manufacturer to date. The project group developed a case study, the main assumption of which was to analyze the possibilities for Solaris Bus & Coach Sp. z o.o. to use rail transport and to rationalize the transport system. In developing the analysis, the priority was to minimize total transport costs and the number of vehicles delivering products to the company.

The main problem resulting from the analysis is high transport costs caused by poor planning of deliveries to the factory. As a result, goods were often delivered to the company by trucks filled to only 30-50% capacity. This caused an increase in the cost of delivering 1 kg of cargo and an increased number of trucks making deliveries to the company (increased vehicle traffic intensity). In order to improve the route planning process in the analyzed company, linear programming algorithms were used, which were then implemented into an Excel spreadsheet. The developed tool used a method that allows for determining the shortest path between network nodes.

Results of the rationalization of the company’s transport system over a five-week period.

No.	Parameter	Before rationalization	After rationalization
1	Total number of full-load deliveries	106	128
2	Total number of less-than-truckload deliveries	43	21
3	Total number of vehicles making deliveries	149	128
4	Reduction in the number of vehicles making deliveries	0%	14%
5	Total transport costs	100%	91%

Comparing the results of the presented rationalization with the traffic intensity within the company, it turned out that thanks to the reorganization of the transport process, traffic intensity decreased by 8 vehicles. In cases where a company incurs costs related to the delivery of goods from manufacturers to its own warehouses, it is natural to organize deliveries in such a way that total transport costs are minimized while meeting specific constraints. Therefore, when there is a need to deliver products from many manufacturers at a similar time, the problem arises of rationally organizing transport processes and finding the appropriate number of vehicles. By implementing the described solution in your company, you can reduce transport costs and at the same time reduce the number of trucks on our roads on a global scale.